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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24360103">Hold Steady</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmonCmon/pseuds/CmonCmon'>CmonCmon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Original Clone Trooper, Pudding Cups, Soft Wars, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, Trauma Recovery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:55:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,286</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24360103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmonCmon/pseuds/CmonCmon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bacara helps a struggling tat'ka adjust. Neyo's just there for backup. Everyone gets a pudding cup.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CC-1138 Bacara &amp; CC-8826 Neyo, CC-1138 | Bacara/CT-7567 | Rex, CC-8826 | Neyo/CT-0292 | Vaughn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>329</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Open Source Soft Wars</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hold Steady</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/gifts">Project0506</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The Soft Wars universe has been one of the bright spots of *gestures at everything* for me. So grateful to play in a little corner of it.</p><p>Bacara needs all the hugs and reassurances, and this was how I could get him to understand that.</p><p>Without <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol">SailorSol</a>, this would certainly not be posted, and probably not be written. She's a terrible enabler.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the end, they’d asked him to come. Maybe not asked, more suggested in a hopeful-eyed sort of way.</p><p>Bacara wouldn’t have said no if they had asked. He also wouldn’t have offered. Lightning knew where to find him, if they thought he had something to give them.</p><p>Baraca snorted at himself. He’d internalized Rex’s long-suffering eye roll.</p><p>They’d suggested. He’d come. Rex had not-suggested he bring backup with him.</p><p>Bacara didn’t need backup. He’d made it through plenty worse on his own.</p><p>“They’re so little.” Neyo sounded equal parts fascinated and horrified.</p><p>“They’ll grow.”</p><p>The two stood at the edge of the play field. It wasn’t warm out, but it was warm enough to stand in the sun and watch. The tat'kate ran and shouted and tumbled over one another. Play might not be the word. They were free.</p><p>Bacara’s heart swelled in his chest while sharp fingers dug at his lungs. They were free, thank the ‘Alor for that. This freedom had taken so long, been at the expense of so many.</p><p>Some of the vode had jumped into freedom, thrown themselves in head first. All of it, all at once. They had brothers to protect them from the worst outcomes, and even the worst outcomes weren’t so bad when the only previously expected end was a battlefield death.</p><p>Others had sampled freedom more cautiously. Maybe a day in civs. Maybe sleeping late into a morning even if they hadn’t been sleep-deprived from battle.</p><p>The shrieking, feral joy of the tat'kate was neither of those paths.</p><p>Bacara stole a look at Neyo. His attention was fixed on the littles, his eyes bright. He wanted to play. He wanted to run, wrestle, throw himself into that chaos. Bacara said nothing. The first suggestion that he understood would have been rewarded with spit insults and glares. Maybe not a cheapshot elbow. Vaughn had been good for Neyo.</p><p>Neyo made a low sound in his chest. “We’ve been spotted.”</p><p>They’d been spotted ten minutes ago. Bacara had seen the shift in body language. For a moment, the oldest of the vode in the field had gone still, waiting, and when they’d made no move, he had returned his attention to the littles. Part of his attention. Bacara knew he and Neyo wouldn’t register as a threat, but they weren’t expected. He’d waited until another his age had joined him in the field before starting over to them.</p><p>The kid’s bearing was excellent. His walk long-limbed, his build solid, but with room to put on pounds of muscle. Yes, Bacara could see why he’d been a good choice, and he hated how easily he could slip back into that mindset.</p><p>“The vod’ikase go to lessons shortly. Did you need anything?” The sir at the end had been silent. More than that, it was his accent that stood out.</p><p>Neyo made one of those sounds that walked the line between humor and disgust. He gestured vaguely toward the play area. “Gonna get a closer look.”</p><p>The kid didn’t turn to watch him go. There was the barest appraising trail of his eyes on Neyo. Curious, but he had been taught not to be too curious.</p><p>“Walk with me, tat’ka?” Bacara had known his accent would give him away. It was stronger now than it had been in a long time, and the effect was as desired. The kid’s eyes widened just for a heartbeat before his posture snapped to textbook form.</p><p>“Sir.”</p><p>Bacara didn’t correct him. Not yet. “Got a name?”</p><p>“They called me Steady, sir.” There was just a flicker when he said it, and Bacara decided they’d been right to ask him to come. ‘Steady’ hadn’t been a compliment when they called him that. Looking at him, shoulders not filled out yet, hair shorn close enough to only be dark stubble, gold eyes wary but the tiniest bit hopeful. Bacara knew all the signs. Long enough with the JP he wants to be everything they said they see in him, and enough days proving he wasn’t good enough to live up to those expectations. Now, without that pressure, that structure, surrounded by brothers who lived a different language, he was struggling to find his place.</p><p>“You know who I am?”</p><p> A hint of excitement he forgot to hide slipping through. “The Marine.” He said it almost shyly, boyishly.</p><p>Bacara would correct that later too.</p><p>The JP had their ways, and everyone else had theirs. It had been why he’d asked Neyo along, even if he’d lost his reinforcements to a crowd of waist-high tat'kate who decided he’d make a good climbing course. Bacara was sure Neyo hadn’t said anything at all to encourage that impression.</p><p>“You didn’t finish your training.” It wasn’t a question.</p><p>“No, sir. We helped make sure we could get all the littles here.”</p><p>“And you watch them.”</p><p>“They need someone to look after them.”</p><p>He made a sound of agreement but nothing more. Yes, of course they did, and somehow Bacara was standing on Grek range, realizing he was the most senior student there, and someone had to get the rest of them through training. It hurt, in a sweet sort of way, to see that responsibility on someone else. Steady didn’t have to carry that. It wouldn’t have been a disservice to his brothers if he allowed someone else to fill that role. Maybe Bacara hadn’t had to carry it either, but no one had ever said that to him.</p><p>Bacara waited, testing the silence. The JP loved silences, loved punishing silences. The ones that would set a cadet’s mind racing for any possible misstep, any lapse that was to be drilled out of him. The JP would break you down, remake you into what they wanted, and if something important shattered in the process, you would go on without it or they’d find someone else who was easier to mold. Bacara’s eyes fell on Neyo, the littles gone to their lesson and now lingering with the older kid about Steady’s age. Being a bad influence, probably.</p><p>Even if he wasn’t going to show it, Neyo was waiting to see if Bacara needed him closer or further away. Backup.</p><p>Before Bacara could find the right thing to say to Steady to break the silence, Neyo flapped his arms at them.</p><p>Bacara signed back, <em>What?</em></p><p><em>Food</em>, Neyo glared.</p><p>The next sign was going to be a rude one before Bacara understood what he meant. “This is your mealtime?”</p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>Yeah, then he deserved the glare. “Come on, we’ll talk over lunch then.”</p><p>Just as Bacara and Steady got close, the other kid caught Steady’s arm for a moment before Steady shook him off. “6975, you’ve got to hear this story Neyo was telling me. He was undercover on a mission to blow up a droid factory and had to save some idiot’s life with expired meds…”</p><p>Bacara waited just long enough for the two to get out of close range before he put one quick punch to Neyo’s kidney, and followed the boys into the mess.</p><p>Each boy pulled two trays and moved to the long table at the back of the room. At least Steady might put some weight on eating like that.</p><p>Neyo shot him one questioning look, but Bacara had no answers. Shockingly, showing up had not instantly resolved Steady’s difficulties with the seismic changes in his life. Considering the other kid didn’t even call him Steady, but his designation, Bacara wasn’t sure they were even friends.</p><p>He hadn’t told anyone to call him Bacara until he was in ARC training. The galaxy moved on, but some things didn’t change all that much.</p><p>Neyo grabbed a spot on the bench by the wall and Bacara slid in next to him, making a mental note to mock him for worrying about blindspots in a building full of children.</p><p>“Lunch.” The other kid plunked his second tray in front of Neyo. “And this is 6975. He’s okay.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I let him hang around.”</p><p>“That’s Jolly, sir.” Steady carefully put one tray in front of Bacara before taking his own seat. “He won’t go away. I’ve tried”</p><p>Both Steady and Jolly waited, watching the other two before they would start eating. Bacara could <em>feel</em> Neyo’s thoughts. <em>You didn’t tell me we’d get pudding cups out of this.</em></p><p>Bacara had heard enough of Rex’s <em>rational</em> and <em>reasonable</em> ranting over the newly-assessed dietary needs of growing vode to not be too surprised by how much higher quality the lunch was than the stuff they’d had on Kamino, but that didn’t mean he felt right eating a meal that should have gone to a little.</p><p>One glance at Steady across the table and Bacara felt like the damn hypocrite he was. He’d been asked here to get the kid to stop acting like that.</p><p>It was okay to eat the food in front of him. He was doing to establish rapport with Steady. There was enough food to go around. He deserved to eat a damn pudding cup if he wanted it.</p><p>Bacara tore a piece off the roll. It was soft, and probably would have still been warm if he hadn’t made the two boys late. He’d tell Rex he approved of the dietary changes.</p><p>“So what do you two do when you’re not playing murderball referee with the vod’ikase?” Neyo had finished whatever the protein portion of his meal was, and the roll, and was peeling the flimsiplast off the pudding.</p><p>“Study. Train.” Jolly shrugged. “We’re not ever getting our Whites, but we’re also probably not going to get blown up by seps so… we’re just here.”</p><p>The whole thing was so casual. The little ones would know what it meant to decide their own futures, but Steady and Jolly, and the ones who had been well into their training were going to have to learn new ways to live. They all might be mando’ade by their own conviction, but that didn’t mean the tat'kate would be forced into the same choices they had been.</p><p>The shuffle of a tray snapped Bacara from the thought. Steady had finished everything in front of him. Bacara snagged his own pudding cup and swapped the empty tray with his own mostly full one before very deliberately peeling back the lid and eating the pudding.</p><p>Neyo kept up enough conversation, it wasn’t too obvious Bacara couldn’t. Chatting about training and lessons and tank-wet shinies he’d known that the two in front of them would never be.</p><p>“So you have sparring for the afternoon?” Neyo grinned, punching Bacara in the shoulder. “Maybe you’ll get a guest instructor, The Marine himself.”</p><p>That was not the deal. They hadn’t discussed that with anyone. Bacara hadn’t prepared for it, hadn’t planned any talk or lesson to give a room full of fourth cycle students.</p><p>“You’re really him?” Jolly froze. “6975 said, but he’d never actually seen you before and… stars...”</p><p>Neyo’s plans for future mocking vibrated off him in silent waves.</p><p>Jaw set, Steady stood and cleared the empty trays. A graceful escape that looked like politeness. The kid really was good. Bacara was glad he’d never burn years as property in a GAR unit, but the JP knew their type. He would have made a brilliant officer.</p><p>“And you’ll come to sparring for the afternoon? Show us…” He flapped his hands in a wide gesture to encompass ‘everything’.</p><p>Steady returned to his seat, eyes fixed on nothing in particular. Listening, Bacara knew, but he knew better than to look too interested unless he was being spoken to directly. The kid wouldn’t let himself look hopeful, because it wouldn’t change the outcome.</p><p>Bacara had to fix this.</p><p>Getting the tat'kate home, getting them away from Kamino, sparing them the war, that was a real good. But that was good on a massive scale. Bacara was glad for that, but he wanted something smaller too. He wanted to put a hand on Steady’s shoulder and tell him all the things he wished someone had told him when he was being broken down and remade into the blunt weapon the JP saw in him.</p><p>But that wasn’t him, and if he was right about the kid, that wasn’t Steady either.</p><p>“I will. What do you think I brought him along for?” Bacara jerked a thumb over to Neyo. If he was doing this, Neyo was doing this too.</p><p>*</p><p>“It all looks easy when it happens that fast,” Bacara explained as he brushed down his sleeves and gave Neyo a moment to climb off the mat. “But that’s what the practice is for.”</p><p>He hadn’t needed a prepared lesson. They might be smaller than his marines had been, but everything else was the same. Show them what you could do, tell them how you did it, show them how you did it, and then watch what they picked up. Just like it had always been.</p><p>“You’re always going to compensate for size and speed, but enough practice and you’ll find your leverage points and with the help of a good sparring buddy…” Bacara threw an arm around Neyo’s shoulder and squeezed just to rub it in. “You’ll learn your weak spots too.”</p><p>There were at least six places Neyo was considering cheapshotting him, so Bacara let him shake his arm off. “But that’s why it’s important to practice with lots of different sparring partners. If you’re only ever paired with the same person, their blindspot will be your weak spot.”</p><p>This was everything they’d heard a thousand times. None of this was new. None of this could be new. It was learning about gravity or combustible compounds, certain things just were. “Practice. Start slow and we’ll go around.”</p><p>“I let you have that one,” Neyo snapped in a whisper.</p><p>“Appreciate it.” Bacara only agreed to infuriate him.</p><p>“I’ll leave your sorry shebs here to handle the rest solo.”</p><p>“You could.” You won’t though.</p><p>Neyo snorted.</p><p>Being around the littles had brought this side of Neyo out more than usual, the bratty pest looking for a reaction. Vaughn would have his hands full when Neyo got home. Probably literally, and that would suit both of them.</p><p>“No, no, you’ve got to--” Neyo stopped next to a pair, changing the hand placement on one side. “And then when he does that, you do this.” He showed how a quick shift in the hips would change the leverage.</p><p>Maybe Bacara was happy he’d brought backup anyway.</p><p>Bacara never felt like he had much to teach, or knew all that much. Not even when he’d had a full force of Novas to train. He’d felt the responsibility, the endless need to know more, do more. The thing war taught again and again was that the one thing you didn’t know, the one you hadn’t planned for, was the thing that would kill you, or worse, the men who were counting on you.</p><p>Here, it all felt knowable. Just put your hands here. Shift your feet over, see how that changes it? Lean in closer and you’ll have the advantage. Bacara had been determined to make every marine he had the best soldier he could, and they’d still died bloody on forgotten Outer Rim planets no one ever really cared what happened to beyond mine or yours.</p><p><em>Battle keeps you humble.</em> He’d heard that too often sitting on a training mat with a bloody nose or busted lip.</p><p>The tat'kate didn’t rush off at the end of the afternoon. The bold ones came up to ask questions, talk through ideas. The less bold ones hung around the edges, slipped into the rings of students as things were discussed or demonstrated.</p><p>Jolly spent the whole time glued to Neyo’s side.</p><p>Steady lingered in the corner of Bacara’s vision, or maybe Bacara tracked him to keep him there. Watching like he could absorb everything from outside an arm’s reach, learn it without ever trespassing too close to the orbit of his brothers.</p><p>When he was finally sure the last of them wouldn’t leave before he and Neyo did, Bacara caught Steady’s eye. Neyo might have read it, or maybe they were just that in tune with one another after all these years.</p><p>“Not study hours yet? Then we can head to the yard and see which of us old vode knows the fun sh-- stuff.” Neyo flashed the kids a smile even they could read as something excitingly reckless for knowing Neyo for only hours, and they raced him to the door. Bacara wanted to call out some sort of caution - keep them safe, don’t let anyone get hurt. There were a hundred ways he would insult Neyo, but he would never insult Neyo like that.</p><p>Neyo wore Priest like Bacara wore the JP. They’d made them, but both of them had no illusions what they’d been made into. Neyo would not allow any of the vod’ikase to be hurt.</p><p>But something was definitely getting set on fire.</p><p>“Sir?” Steady held his posture, but Bacara could see the sweat around the edges of his clothes. He’d sparred hard, only with Jolly until Neyo had switched them both to other partners. Had Bacara held that tightly to Neyo back then? Probably.</p><p>“Bacara,” he corrected, and Steady’s eyes widened for an instant. “You earned it.”</p><p>“Thank you… Bacara.” If he’d just handed it to him, he wouldn’t have accepted it. There was just a flush of pride on the kid’s sharp cheeks, but something wary still lurked. Steady gave the room one quick sweep with his gaze. “Did you need me for something?”</p><p>Bacara knew they were alone. He wouldn’t have risked pulling Steady aside and having someone think it was a reprimand, or worse, favoritism.</p><p>“You wear yourself out sparring?”</p><p>One flicker in his gaze. <em>Trick question?</em> He chose the response least likely to get him running laps or missing out on something he might really want to do. “I did my best, sir.”</p><p>“Bacara,” he repeated, softening his tone as well as he could, even if he had little practice at it. The JP hated to give the same correction twice, and that was made abundantly clear. “Think you’d have enough to try a few sequences with me?”</p><p>“Yes, Bacara.” Steady’s smile lit him up like a star. “Thank you.”</p><p><em>Thank you?</em> A spark of fury lit in his chest at the words. He didn’t need to be thanked. Spending ten extra minutes with one of his brothers, one of his little brothers who hadn’t had the support and reassurance he needed, wasn’t something that required thanks. It wasn’t a gift. It was literally the least they could do for him, the least Bacara could do for him. He deserved to have people around him who would fill all those cracks that had been incorporated into the foundation as he was made and remade to suit people who weren’t building a man to stand firm in his own life, but making a tool to be used until it broke and then replaced.</p><p>“Good.” Bacara shut out his own emotions and focused on Steady. He skipped any of the banter he would use with his marines, and definitely any of the things he’d say to Neyo. This wasn’t a challenge. This wasn’t even a fair fight. To be honest, he didn’t care if Steady learned a single move while they were at it.</p><p>And it was vital to the mission that Steady didn’t know any of those things.</p><p>Bacara squared up easy, upper body loose. He wanted to warn Steady about his knee brace, not to protect his knee but to ensure the kid didn’t hurt himself on it. Bacara would guard for that instead. Steady had enough on his plate.</p><p>The first few goes, Steady came at him. That was what Bacara expected. Testing himself, showing he wasn’t without skill. Bacara let him, easing away and around attacks instead of stopping or countering them. He wasn’t bad. He knew in his head where he was supposed to be. He was clean, precise. Well trained.</p><p>When Bacara took the offensive, clean went out the window. As soon as Bacara reached for a hold or a strike, the kid dropped all his training. A shoulder would fly open or his weight would be off. Bacara had watched the kid as he sparred with Jolly. He’d been good, smart, instinctive and clever. With Bacara, the kid was thinking too hard, desperate not to make a mistake.</p><p>No, something wasn’t right. Bacara hadn’t even broken a sweat and the kid looked like he’d run ten kliks in full kit.</p><p>“Can you go again?” He genuinely meant it as a question, but he should have expected it didn’t sound like one. Most likely, Steady hadn’t gotten a choice in the matter very often.</p><p>Still, he nodded once, drawing in long breaths. “Yes, Bacara.”</p><p>This time, the kid hung back, moving well, but even more tentative than before. Intimidated? Sure, Bacara could be intimidating if he needed to be. This wasn’t that.</p><p>If Bacara had been trying at all, it would have taken a split second to get a hand on that front shoulder and swing him to the mat. Bacara’s momentum and size made it easy as breathing. Every time Bacara had put him on the mat, it’d been without any bite. He’d made sure of that.</p><p>No, the kid wasn’t intimidated, he was scared.</p><p>Bacara felt that damn pudding cup turn to acid in his stomach. “Hold.”</p><p>Steady held.</p><p>Of course he was scared, and Bacara should have seen it sooner. The last few goes had him rattled. Left him feeling exposed and vulnerable. He was waiting for the moment Bacara lost patience with him, and what would come after.</p><p>Bacara moved in closer, into his space. “Look at me.”</p><p>Steady’s breathing was uneven, his heart probably racing and blood pressure in the atmosphere. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Bacara once the whole time they’d been sparring.</p><p>“No, look at <em>me</em>.”</p><p>Steady’s attention sharpened to his face. There’s no way the kid could know how much of his feelings were shining in his eyes, and Bacara accepted the weight of that responsibility on him.</p><p>Bacara rested a hand on his shoulder. Light. Barely there. Steady flinched anyway.</p><p>“It’s okay. You’re okay.” Bacara said it like a promise, and he meant it like one. Steady was safe, he would be safe, and Bacara would make sure of it. “Come here.”</p><p>The question flashed across Steady’s face. <em>Where?</em></p><p>Bacara pulled him in, wrapped him into a hug. “You’re okay.” For a moment, the kid didn’t do anything. Then he melted, gripped at him, clinging, and Bacara held him. “That’s right tat’ka. It’s okay.” It took one heaving breath for the sobs to start, and Bacara felt a grim satisfaction in it. They’d asked him to come find what it would take to help the kid, and he’d found it. He stroked a hand down the back of his neck and smoothed it over the shaking shoulders to soothe him. “I’ve got you.”</p><p>“I don’t… I’m not…” The kid was shaking too hard to speak, but Bacara let him try. He’d spent the afternoon trying to drag these words out. He’d take them in broken gasps. “I don’t know what I’m for now. I’m…”</p><p>The next sob was wracking, and Bacara simply held on. “Take your time. Breathe for me.”</p><p>The next breath was shaky.</p><p>Of course the kid would take his coaching even as he fell apart. “Good. Good, thank you. Another breath, please.”</p><p>The kid made a little whimper sound that was at least part sob, and took in another breath, this one easier. Bacara would thank Rex for that one later.</p><p>“I want us to be here, be free. But… but now what?” The kid had one hand fisted in the fabric at Bacara’s back, the other probably leaving bruises in the meat of his shoulder, but as the truth came slipping through, Bacara felt a rush of victory that could compete with a battle won. If they could get through to him, they could help him. “I don’t know what to do, or how to… be this.”</p><p>It was a question for someone so much wiser than Bacara, but it was a question the kid could only answer for himself. It had taken Bacara a long time to even start to answer it for himself. “Tell me about it.”</p><p>The kid peeled away, far enough to look at Bacara with doubting, red-rimmed eyes.</p><p>“You’re safe. You’re doing well,” Bacara promised, because the more coherent the kid got, the more everything in him would scream that this was wrong, weak. All Bacara could do was show him how honestly he meant it. “Sometimes, we just need to fall apart.”</p><p>The kid laughed, and put snot all over his face doing it. He let go of Bacara with one hand to wipe at his face with the back of his hands and then his pants leg. “Sorry, that was... I… we?” He scrubbed at his face again, a little sob still trembling through him.</p><p>It would take Bacara a week to name all the hardened marines he’d seen crumble into tears in his life, and that was just counting the marines. Bacara put an arm around his shoulders and led him to sit at the edge of the mat. “Yeah kid, we.”</p><p>“Kid?” He scrunched up his face.</p><p>“I’m not calling you what ‘they’ called you.” Bacara sat them down side by side, his hand still around him. “You tell me you want to be called. I’ll call you that.”</p><p>The kid’s eyes fell to his own shaking hands braced on top of his knees. Bacara could practically hear the doubts racing through his head.</p><p>“I was older than you before I had a name anyone called me.” He rarely told anyone that. It was another sign of how alone he’d always been. “I was through training.” The kid lifted disbelieving eyes to his. “I was going for ARC training before I told anyone to call me Bacara.”</p><p>The kid sobered and Bacara worried he’d said the wrong thing. “I’ll never be an ARC. I wanted to be an ARC.”</p><p>Bacara hadn’t thought about that, but it was true. There was always loss in change. “I know a lot of ARCs who would teach you.”</p><p>“For what? I’ll never be a real CC… not even be a soldier.” The kid began to fidget, fussing with the way the fabric of his blacks lay on his shins, but not moving in any way that might dislodge Bacara’s arm.</p><p>“Is that what you wanted to be?” It was an unfair question and Bacara knew it. But he had to ask it so the kid would know it.</p><p>“I never had to want to be anything before.” The words were bitter, and Bacara expected nothing less.</p><p>“Except an ARC.”</p><p>“That’s different.” The kid glared ahead at nothing, probably because he didn’t have it in him to glare at Bacara. “ARCs prove themselves. Everyone knows what an ARC is worth.”</p><p>Bacara knew this truth in some string of code in his bones. He knew what it meant to need something to hold up to show your brothers you were worth something. “I know. It’s why I became an ARC.” He shifted closer, let the kid rest against his side. “You can become something else.”</p><p>“I don’t want something else.” It was a little, petulant objection.</p><p>“I thought you said you don’t know what you want.”</p><p>The kid hung an arm around Bacara, shoulder resting in the hollow of his side. He needed the contact. If his training had been anything like Bacara’s, there hadn’t been contact like this. Or honesty like this.</p><p>“I wanted to be better than <em>steady</em>.” The kid sneered the word. “That was what they’d say. It wasn’t my name… I never got a name. Steady was all I was. At best.”</p><p>Bacara’s own history with Neyo came back in laser-focus. Bacara was good, but Neyo was smarter, faster, and meaner.</p><p>“That’s what they look for.” It was a risk to explain. Bacara wasn’t sure he had ever really accepted it as true for himself, but with the kid hanging onto him like a lifeline, it made more sense than it ever had before. “Pick the cadets who can keep going. Too smart, too flashy, they’d have to break you of that first. You and me, they skip that step.”</p><p>“You’re The Marine,” the kid reminded him.</p><p>“I’m a marine.” Bacara rested his cheek on the kid’s head for a moment. Bacara had never liked the nickname, but he was aware of the honor of it, the value of it. “I know a lot of them. Knew a lot more of them.” A smile creased around his eyes. “Might have been a steady before I was a marine. But they didn’t call me that.”</p><p>“What did they--”</p><p><em>Not a chance.</em> “Nothing I’ll repeat in front of you.”</p><p>The kid laughed and it didn’t sound so rough this time. “So if they’d called you steady?”</p><p>“Would have been a compliment.”</p><p>*</p><p>By the time Neyo came back, Bacara was on the mat with the kid pinning his arm behind his back while they talked through the dozen ways he could not only neutralize it, but make a person sorry they’d ever thought it was a good idea. Part of Bacara was sure this had already been covered but the kid didn’t want to say that and have the lesson end.</p><p>“They have to go. More… things to do.” Neyo settled into a sulk, shoulder propped against the wall. Sad his playmates had to go back to their lessons, Bacara turned his face to the mat to hide his smirk.</p><p>The kid let go of his arm, and pulled away to stand. Other than to reset for the dozen rounds of sparring they’d been through once the tears had stopped, the kid hadn’t let go of him, and Bacara refused to do anything that might suggest he should.</p><p>Bacara stood, careful to hide any protectiveness around his knee. His own fault. He’d turned on it wrong, and it would remind him of that misstep for the next few days.</p><p>Bacara checked the door out to the field first. “Where’s Jolly?”</p><p>“Just finishing something up out there.” The tone was so innocent it should belong to a whole different person. Someone would have to deal with whatever that disaster was later, judging by the way Neyo was smiling. “Nice work today, 6975.”</p><p>“Steady, sir,” the kid corrected him and Bacara was pretty sure the swelling in his heart was a medical condition. “Thank you for taking the time.”</p><p>Neyo smirked at Bacara. <em>Sure is one of yours.</em></p><p>“Steady, go make sure Jolly escapes before someone catches him.” Bacara jerked his head toward the outside.</p><p>Steady played at indifferent for a heartbeat before he had to duck his head to hide a smile. “Yes, Bacara.”</p><p>Bacara stole a quick look at Neyo. The kid was disgustingly cute. Of course he wanted to see what his brothers had set on fire, or blown up, or booby trapped.</p><p>“And Steady,” Bacara called after him. “We’ll be back in a couple days to see how you are all progressing. Make sure your brothers know that.”</p><p>Neyo waited until the kid was out of earshot. “We will?”</p><p>Bacara rolled his shoulder. The kid, no, Steady had twisted just a little too hard for educational purposes. “You’ll get another pudding cup.”</p><p>Neyo grumbled as they walked out, but Bacara knew he’d won again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I imagine after this, Bacara goes home to snuggle Rex for all the Personal Growth he's been through.</p><p>By my approximate count, there are seventeen internal references to other moments in the Soft Wars universe. Gratitude/Apologies to everyone who built those things.</p><p>If anyone knows the JP version of vod'ikase, I'd love to go back and adjust that because I will not be convinced Bacara does not think in dialect. (ETA: SheAPunk89 coined "tat'kate" as the diminutive plural of the dialectic 'tat' so I've changed to reflect that here (Tat/Tat'ka/Tat'kate)</p><p>ETA: Also I am literally a disaster at tagging. If there's anything that should be added, let me know!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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